Announcement: Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery, Awesome!

I do not have any pictures for this post, which saddens me. But I think that the overall importance of the post will outweigh its lack of imagery. Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery, located in the Lower East Side, has the best cupcakes I have had (so far!) in the city. Better than Magnolia, but I haven't been there in a while, so I might have to try those out again too (But, everyone says they are better than Magnolia Bakery, and I think I'm going to believe them.) Better than Billy's Bakery in Chelsea, too.

I had a Lemon cupcake, and it was divine. Perfectly soft and fluffy cake, with just the right amount of frosting: not overbearing and goopy, but not spread too thin either. And nothing about the cupcake was too heavy, which is a good sign. At $1.50 a cupcake, I highly recommend.

image courtesy of sugar Sweet sunshine Bakery

Short Hair Makes a Comeback

So I've been thinking a lot about cutting my hair short again. I used to have a pixie cut, but it's grown out a lot, and I sorta miss it. I was thinking of cutting it super short a la Jean Seberg (my original inspiration for the cut I used to have) for summer. And then I could let it grow out over the vacation.

I officially want to be Jean Seberg in this photograph/movie. Gahh!!

I mean seriously, I know that Audrey Hepburn and Jean Seberg would be gorgeous no matter what hair cut they had, but I am so inspired. It's so elegant and sophisticated! And adorable.

80 Posts

Happy 80th post, blog.

Anyways, hello. How are you? Have you checked out my new blog, Every Last Cookie, yet? Do it. Thanks!

It's almost spring, I can feel it. It's still cold and all that, but I'm keeping a very watchful eye on the tree out my window so that I can spot the buds on the branches as soon as they appear. And when they do, you will be the first to know.

I've been getting interested in taking photographs of the shapes of buildings; specifically the more corporate ones, like the ones you find around MOMA and up in the 50s. Interesting patterns, I think.

How was your February? Cold? Hot? Nice? Awful? How are you liking Fashion Week? I liked it.

Sugar Overload!

[Public Announcement: I have started my new Martha Stewart Cookie Blog, documenting my adventures in baking all 150 cookies from her cookbook. Please check out the new blog! It's called Every Last Cookie!]

I just realized that I never shared with you guys my birthday party! Granted, probably all of my readers were present at said event, but I will post the photos regardless, for my own satisfaction. And I can tell this post is going to take me a while to complete, because I'm trying to watch Top Chef, and that needs my undivided attention.

A little scary bugger, no?

Beauties, every one of them!

The theme was a cookie decorating party complete with as much baked goods and treats as possible. It had a sort of side-theme which was Wintery desserts: lots of peppermint, gingerbread, hot cocoa, you know, the works. In retrospect, the extraordinarily large amount of sugar and fat wasn't the best idea, even though my mother did prepare a beautiful veggie plate (which we all greedily devoured, to be sure).

Myself, diligently manning the vat of hot cocoa

So, the day before, I made peppermint marshmallows, dough for gingerbread cookies, and dough for Moravian Spice cookies. The day of, my mother made her famous apple pie (see first photo with the sexy stud), Nutella hot cocoa, and the veggie platter. Everything was quite tasty, but all combined, I felt completely nauseous and jittery. I even got really ill the day after, but I think it was unrelated and I just got the flu. Regardless, I couldn't even THINK of gingerbread without wanting to throw up! UGHHH.

I'm sure you really wanted to see gingerbread dough right after I mentioned
throwing up, right?

Anyways, we all had a really swell time and decorated cookies and gossiped and giggled and shouted and laughed and were obnoxious. I save my best, most charming behavior for my friends, no doubt.

P.S. I really love those Geico ads where someone is in some inane situation and then asks "What is that?!" and another person responds "Oh, that's the money you could be saving with Geico" and it's that cute little stack of cash with the googly eyes. Makes me giggle.

Pfeffernussen, and the Martha Stewart Experience

February is halfway complete, and if that doesn't blow your mind, I don't know what will. Maybe these cookies? Eh, they're good, but not necessarily mind blowingly good. These Pfeffernussen--"Peppernut" in English--cookies are tasty and delightful, but nothing too remarkable. But really, they are very very tasty, don't get me wrong, but they aren't very different. I recommend you make them, though, because they are tasty and simple! Crowd pleasers too! And the name is so fun to say; plus, it sounds complicated and gourmet and makes you sound like a fancy pastry chef.

You see, the premise for baking these cookies is all part of my new experiment/project: I want to make every single cookie from the Martha Stewart Cookie Cookbook during the 4 years that I am here at college. I have no idea if this is completely impossible (I think it is), but I definitely want to try. So far, all the cookies I've made from her recipes turned out really delish, so why not go all out? Yes!

The Pfeffernussen in particular were so easy to make and were texturally spectacular! Yes! They had just the right amount of crunchyness on the edges while still maintaining a perfectly soft pillow-like texture in the middle. I also really loved how every so often you could taste a bit of ground black pepper in the cookie; a little bit of spice!

And look how cute they are!! Aw! I just liked looking at them all lined up on the baking sheet like little pyjama buttons. HOWEVER, be forewarned that they are ridiculously messy to eat! Confectioner sugar flies everywhere when you bite into them.

So, back to my whole "bake every Martha Stewart cookie in four years without becoming obese" project. I think I'm going to make a new blog devoted to each cookie I make throughout this long ordeal. What do you think? Does that sound fun, or will it just get mundane and boring after a while?

Studio Photos

Hello! So here are the photos that I took during class the day before yesterday. We set up the studio lighting (strobes) and got out the heavy-duty tripods, and made a crazy setup with chairs and cloth and random sculpture projects and etc. etc. etc. It was pretty fun, but I wished I could have adjusted the lighting a little more. I did change the photos up a bit in Photoshop, burning, dodging, you know the drill. I'm actually getting into this whole Photoshop thing...

I guess that's the gist of them. Or at least the ones I like.

Tonight I'm going to make some cookies from the Martha Stewart Cookie Cookbook (my new obsession) with some friends, watch America's Best Dance Crew (I just watch it for the sake of listening to Lil Mama; otherwise, I'm a purely So You Think You Can Dance fan [don't laugh at me]), and just chill out a bit. Then, tomorrow, I'm off to my internship.

Until next time....

My Palette is Washing Out

Been shooting a lot in my digital photo class. We did a little impromptu
photoshoot today, with studio lighting etc. I'll post the pictures tomorrow, I think.

Happy Tuesday?

Neat

Pretty neat. All my food photos from Flickr!

Hope you had a pleasant weekend!

Color Photo Final!

So I just realized that I never posted the photographs that I turned in for my final project in my Color Photography class. So, without further ado, here they are:

Apologies for the poor scan job...I realize you can see the white borders of the prints, and also, the colors are not up to snuff. Just imagine them as real prints on matte paper, and nicer.

I took these during my Thanksgiving break when I went to visit my relatives in Pennsylvania. I really had no strong idea of what I wanted to shoot, so I just took pictures of images, patterns, colors, whatever I found to be visually interesting. I had no real "concept" behind these, but they are inherently very domestic and William Eggleston-esque, I suppose you could say. Maybe I was inspired by his work because I had just been shown some of it in class several weeks before...Anyways, I'd love to hear your opinions on these. You can click them and go to my Flickr to see them larger. The lace shot works better in large format, for example.

In other news, I just dusted off the industrial sewing machines here in the sewing room and the one that I got up and running works like a charm! Hurray!

(Also, I'm killing Mid Week Magic Hour, because, honestly, it's just embarrassing).

Until next time!

Let's Get Productive!

I did it!

I put Facebook on my blocked websites list. I've been due for a break for a very long time indeed.

So, to productivity and internet independence (sorta)! Let's see how long I can do this...

Hello Birdies

Did I tell you about the amazing decorated bird cookies that my good (and incredibly meticulous) friend Anne made? I'll let the photos do the talking...

Incredible, no? I couldn't eat them! I just couldn't bring myself to do that! But, now I really wish I had one right here, here in my dorm room, so I could devour it anyways. Because I could really go for a cookie right now. Yumnumnum...